Many wine lovers see the act of decanting a bottle as part of a beautiful age-old ritual and an art form (yes, there’s even a coffee table book about it). But a Spanish Michelin three-star chef has developed a new kind of wine bottle that he claims will revolutionize the world of wine by rendering decanting unnecessary. Red wines often form gritty sediment as part of the aging process, and carefully pouring the wine into a decanter keeps that sediment out of your glass. Martín Berasategui’s new invention traps the unwanted grit before it leaves the bottle.

For Toronto sommelier Zoltan Szabo, decanting wine serves many purposes: it helps aerate the wine, it brings it up to room temperature and, of course, it eliminates the sediment. But just as importantly, it’s part of a sommelier’s showmanship. “What about the flair? What about the beauty of being in this business?” he says. “It’s like going to a theatre when you dine. The curtain goes up and the act begins.”

In Szabo’s opinion, some new innovations, like this bottle and the iPad wine lists that are becoming popular, are threatening to dehumanize and de-romanticize the experience of drinking wine. “If this is the path that we’re heading down, a few years from now, someone will hand you a pill and say, ‘This is cabernet sauvignon,’” he says.

While we’re not sure the bottle’s funky shape is doing it any favours, we’re still trying to decide whether or not we should steal Szabo’s alcohol pill idea.